Enhance your Battlefield! PEDION Wall System unlocked

Our backers did it again - yes, another Stretch Goal is down, one that really enhances our range: the Pedion Wall System.

The newly unlocked Pedion Bridge - modular, affordable, perfect for your River Tiles!

Raise those Walls Soldier!

The Wall System started as a small side-project, designed to take advantage of the connectivity of the Tiles and add man-made features on them, which can be removed easily and stored away – Pedion style. The Stretch Goal unlocks the basics of the Wall-system, allowing players to get a series of stone fences and hedges to enhance their terrain and their games. The main requirements behind the Wall System are:
a) to avoid the placing of walls on bases for stability,
b) to allow flexibility in wall placement and unit movement,
c) to take advantage of magnetized areas on the tiles, and
d) to be simple and affordable.

Creating wargame walls without bases improves the aesthetics of the battlefield (the walls touch the ground realistically ) and allows unit placement next to them without having to balance the unit on the raised base. But what substitutes bases or unnatural wall thickness? The Pedion Columns of course.

The main principle of the System is this: there are “stone” columns (1x1x3cm) which act as the anchors of the walls/fences. These posts have magnetic bases to clip on the tiles, and magnets on 2 or 3 of their sides for the wall parts to clip onto them. So, you first place the columns, and then easily snap any wall part you want on and off. The Columns act as stabilizers and connectors for a network of fences.

You can better understand see the simple way the System works (and the easy that walls are dismantled and stores away in the following video, especially after 0:34)

The prototypes you see on the photos and video are made from foamboard and plasticard. The Stretch Goal represents the design of molds to create resin parts of walls and columns, to be painted afterwards. For the hedges I have used pan scourer – and I am not sure if I’ll switch to something else, if it is going to keep the cost low for backers.

Speaking of cost, there are new options in the Add-ons section, for backers to enhance their sets. Expect for these to grow, as I will add more wall lengths and options. And perhaps grab that “Crops Tile” Hedge Set, as the price is a Kickstarter special!

The wall parts will be 12cm (4.7”) long, 3mm thick and their height will vary depending on scale and purpose. Specifically, I was planning to make available different heights for players to choose: “15mm low” (H=10mm), “15mm high/20-28mm low” (H=20mm), “20-28mm high” (H=30mm). For Stone fences, there will be grey stone, sand stone and brick variations.

Build those Bridges

Along with the "Wall System", another favorite of mine unlocked: the Pedion Bridge. In the spirit of Pedion, the Bridge is a 3-part flat stone modular construct, designed for the depth and with of the River Tiles. The arches go 1 cm deep to touch water surface and the bridge is 7 cm wide and 14 cm long.
It assembles (magnetically) into one piece or you can dismantle it and store it away without taking any space. If you are getting any River tiles, this is a must have add-on, especially at the £9 price tag.

Desert and Winter Variation photos

Many backers asked for them, so take a look at the first photos from Desert/Winter prototype tiles. The beautiful 15mm and 6mm miniatures of Anne and +David Yeomans  bring the photographs to life.

Desert theme with Asphalt Road - 15mm FoW minis

6mm Ancients on Desert tiles

The elephant is coming!

Special kind of "broken ground" tile type I am thinking for Desert and Snow: raised dunes/drifts. It increases tile weight and vertical size, but looks nice.

German 88mm at the Eastern Front - Winter tiles with Dirt road and 15mm FoW minis

Next Stretch Goal

We still have a little bit over 2 weeks left in the Kickstarter campaign - how about some more Stretch Goals? The next one, upon £28000, will unlock some "Science Fiction" looks for the Tiles. But this is not only it; this SG unlocks the two types of Crater Tiles (asteroid and bombardment crater) as well as different, more exotic "liquids" for your River tiles: Lava flow and Green toxic stream...
Hooked? Spread the word, bring your friends and we will reach it!

Good gaming,

George

Journal #6 - or, The Road goes ever on and on

The time has come to show you another major kind of tiles that will be part of Pedion - and of any wargaming board I know of: the Roads...
In case you are following our facebook and twitter feeds, you may have seen that most of the Pedion™ prototype tiles are ready and configured into various wargame layouts. The Road tiles were some of my first prototypes but I am quite happy with their design parameters.

As with the rest of Pedion™ tiles, there will be tile designated as "roads", ie a part of the tile can be used as road by moving units, with any bonus this may grant depending on the ruleset used. What really sets the Road tiles apart is that they must be designed in a way to connect to each other and form a road network when the table is set. Also, there cannot be just one or two Road tiles in a full layout; there will be either enough to form a road crossing between two edges of the table, or none.

By selecting square tile shape, there are some limitations on road tile design. The roads must "start" from specific places on the tiles, in order to interchange them without problem. An obvious starting point is the middle of each tile's side. That means that the generated roads can only have 90 degree turns, intersections or crossroads. This is not as serious a handicap as it sounds, since most human made/designed roads cross at 90 deg (this was one of the main reasons I preferred square tiles to hexagons since they allow only for 30 degree intersections).  However, I intend to design a 30/60 degree intersection system to allow for such offshoots.

Road Tile Variations

• For the time being, there are four (4) basic Road tile designs: two kinds of Straight road, a 90 degree road turn and a "T" shaped intersection. 
• The Road width is approx. 7 cm on the tiles (that's about 2.75"). I selected this size as it corresponds to realistic road sizes for the whole 15mm to 28mm scale range Pedion is intended for. Therefore, the road can correspond to a 4m (13') wide road in 28mm scale (1/56), up to a 7m 2-lane (23') in 15mm scale (1/100). For smaller scales there will be tiles with less wide roads.
• The prototype tiles represented cobblestone covered road parts. This will be one only of the available road styles; there will also be the option for dirt or asphalt roads. I went with the cobblestone since it is the most difficult to produce and presents a nice result. Asphalt roads may be more "scale-specific" as they will show road stripes. If Pedion™ expands, I am thinking of more road styles, suitable to sci-fi terrain.  

Check out the road tiles in the pictures below:

6 road tiles, suitable for a 4x4 game table

a T-shaped intersection, for more variety or urban enviroments

Road tile modularity

The Road tiles can be combined in an almost infinite number of ways over your gaming table. The final result is both practical and realistic, since the roads do not "protrude" from the surrounding surface, but look natural in the terrain. However, their modularity capabilities do not stop there.

Real roads have trees or other features on their sidelines, or are usually followed by lines of fences. In many of my games I have used roads next to walls, hedges etc.

So I decided to magnetically enable the roadsides, in order for the players to place any magnet-based terrain feature they want next to them! Instead of predesignating walls, trees etc, you can place and remove features as you wish (or your gaming scenario dictates!). All the "dirt" area on the tiles is actually capable of holding terrain features like the trees I created for the forest tiles. I will let the video speak for itself...

The magnetized features in the video connect because the roadsides are painted with magnetic primer. In this case, the magnetic primer remained strong enough fro the magnets to connect. However it is possible to replace the primer with metal hardpoints at regular intervals in future iterations. 

Basecoating over the magnetic primer

On general progress

As I mentioned above, most prototypes are ready, and I think I have enough hard data to finalize design decisions and move to the next step: bringing Pedion to the world, that is, you. It is my intention to create a crowdfunding campaign for Pedion, in order to scope if there is actual interest, and what would people prefer for their terrain tiles. 

The campaign will start rather sooner than later, since I am planing this for a long time, having made exhaustive calculations on manhours, development methods, costs, and shipping size & weight. I intend to make Pedion available in fixed, boxed layout sets, suitable for 3x3,4x4 and 4x6 wargaming tables, and allow each gamer to expand it by getting extra tiles as needed - check out a sample 4x4 layout including a river for your viewing pleasure :)

a 4'x4' layout variation, including 5 road tiles, as well as 1 forest tile and two hill tiles (soon to come)

There are still issues to iron out, especially cost-wise, since the tiles seem to be more costly to make than I anticipated, raising the overall set cost. However, I believe the sets will be more competitively priced than other solutions out there. Also, there is still  the selection of the crowdfunding platform, since, while I would prefer KickStarter, it is a nightmare to start a campaign from a non-supported country, like Greece.

All these will be discussed in future blog posts, and of course over facebook and twitter. So, if you think you would (or know someone who would) be interested in being among the first to get a Pedion™ modular battlefield, follow us there. Also, I would really, really apreciate comments and ideas on the Road tiles, to make them even better!

Good gaming all!

Journal #5 - or, Into the Dark Forest

Ready to see more of my prototype tiles for Pedion™? It's time to show you what I have in mind for my Forests - and I think you will find it pretty ambitious.

A short recap: as mentioned in my previous posts, I intent each and every one of my 30x30 cm (1'x1') tiles to represent a unique feature, to act as a special battlefield characteristic. This will add variation to your terrain, and allow you to add or subtract tiles depending on your battle scenario layout (or your wargaming whim!). Terrain features are not intended to be placed upon Pedion tiles (not that you could not do this with terrain you may already own), but are actually part of the tile itself. This allows  for better and realistically looking terrain, not to mention some specific capabilities built into the tiles. On post #4 I started presenting these particular tile categories by showing the simpler and more numerous Plain Grass and Broken Ground Tiles.

Now we move on to what I call Forest Tiles.

Heracles fighting the centaur Nessus in a Pedion Forest - minis are actually 32mm toy figures stolen from my son

The concept of "Forest" tiles is really simple but innovative: dedicate an area on a tile (covering most of its surface) as forest/difficult terrain. This area is not only painted differently but will also be magnetically enabled, to add trees and other forest features on top. The main characteristics of the Forest tiles are:

• The players may place the Forest tiles anywhere in a Pedion™ battlefield, or adjacent to each other, creating a larger forest: the "forest" borders are drawn in such a way to connect on one side!
• The "forest"area on each tile is defined by color and textures, and can be declared by the players to act as Forest, Difficult Terrain, or Cover Terrain, depending on their wargaming rules. The "forest" area DOES NOT PROTRUDE from the neighboring terrain, but feels completely as a part of it. Therefore, miniatures and Unit bases do not have to "climb" when entering the forest, as is the case with most forest pieces in the market.
• The defined area is also magnetically enabled (either by metal "hard-points" either painted with magnetic primer). Thus, the player can place on top any kind of terrain feature -like trees, bushes, logs, rocks- with magnetic bases. The tiles are designed this way in order to allow for a) aesthetic placement, b) different sizes of trees in case of smaller scales, and mainly c) enable the players to remove only the trees that are in the way of their units movement or placement, without either ruining the whole forest nor trying to fit the miniatures in the spaces among the trees. The magnetic connections is strong enough to protect the trees from scattering when the tile is moved accidentally.
• The metal hard-points allow for declaring the Forest tiles as other kinds of terrain, depending on your rules. For instance, by placing rock formations or bushes with magnetic bases, you can declare the tile as Cover terrain.

The borders of the forested area on the tiles are not randomly drawn but are digitized from real forests' borders near rural areas, as shown on satellite images. Two main Forest tiles are designed, which can either be used independently, or -as mentioned- can be combined into a larger forest.

To create the magnetically enabled area, I tried two methods: placing metal hardpoints (coins) in various places and painting the whole area with magnetic primer. I used one method on the first tile and the other on the second type of tile. After caulking, painting, flocking etc, it seems that placing some kind of metal produces a better, more stable method, as the hardpoints remain strong enough for the magnet bases to snap unto.

Let me show you the development of the tiles themselves over some photos:

The two types of forest tiles, with the adjoining forest shapes - one has the metal coins to attract the magnet bases

Basecoating - the grey on the left is the magnetic primer

Texturing - tree bark and filler are combined for the larger rock foramtions

Drybrushing and Flocking - you can glimpse the metal circular areas for the trees to snap onto.

The second tile is ready - it looks great but the magnetic primer does react that strongly to magnets under all the paint layers and flocking

The two prototypes look good, much better actually than what you can see in the pictures. However, I would try to define the border of the magnetized area more strongly, as now it seems to blend with the surrounding grass. Though is looks amazing and realistic, these tiles will be used for wargaming and the players must know exactly when the forest/cover area stops.

After the tiles, it was time to create overhead forest features, like trees. As I said above, the forest tiles can be used for a variety of tree scales and even for non-forest features like rock formations. For my prototype I created mostly trees, of different sizes, and some extra forest floor features, like bushes, rocks, fallen logs etc, if the players want to add variety and some rise and falls to the forest floor.


The trees are ready made, mostly from Noch. I sculpted polystyrene foam bases for them, to fit the rear earth magnets underneath, which were painted, dry-brushed and flocked. Check my efforts in the pictures:

The tree trunks are inserted and glued to sculpted  foam bases 

Preparing some trees for smaller scale (15mm or less) games

Inserting and gluing rear earth magnets

Preparing forest floor decoration pieces

Texturing

Finished trees and forest features - goblin warrior for scale!

The trees also came out great. Their only problem is that sometimes the magnet may come off when attracted to the metal forest floor - so I will probably keep it in place by covering the whole base with tape.

If anything, the trees and forest stuff come too good - that is, they take too long to make. Since the each tile sports quite a large forest area, it needs a lot of trees to look realistic. Six (6) trees would be the absolute medium, and only for scales like 20mm to 28mm. Therefore, I have to take note and accelerate the tree-making process, or the forest tile cost will rise disproportionately.

Check out some photos of how the Forest tiles look populated with trees and bushes, especially when the two tiles are joined next to each other.

So, let's suppose that you are using the beautiful Pedion™ Forest Tiles, full of trees, for your battle. In the pictures below a sample unit of goblin archers reaches on its round the forest...

(just some old Games Workshop goblins)

On its round, the unit moves 6" into the forest - no problem! No climbing, and all the player has to do is remove for a bit any trees or features in the way.

Next round, and the unit left the forest. Putting the trees back is no fuss

Forest tiles are good terrain features, and those tiles cover all the requirements I had for Pedion. However, I am not sure every battlefield commander will want forest tiles - so I will probably not add them into basic Pedion™ configurations. This will help to keep the overall cost low.

When adding a forest tile, it will include at least six tree stands - and you can always add more trees or different features in the future, even ones you already own.

As always, I do want your opinions, comments and ideas. And more tile categories will be presented in future blog posts - stay tuned. Till then, good gaming all!

Journal #3 - or, Choosing materials for Pedion Modular Terrain Tiles

Here I am, back to my blog, to ramble on about the materials I will use on Pedion tiles. I know, I know; the last blog post was not too impressive, lots of talk, and no "real" terrain progress showing. But it was an important part of developing Pedion, and I feel I should share it with anyone interested. However, I WILL try to by "less text wall, more to the point" in this third blog post, to make it an easier read.

So, as finalized in my previous (#2) post, I decided to go with Square tiles, each measuring 30x30x1(thickness) cm. The next step was to decide a) which materials to use and b) how to keep the modules connected to each other - both points I will be tackling here.

Choice of Materials

Before describing my process, let me remind  -once more- my Requirements which apply to the Tiles, as presented in post #1: Modularity, Efficient Storage, Lightweight, Economical, Durable, Appearance, Level surfaced, Seamless and Connectivity - all these under the perspective of mass producing Pedion, not just making a home-brewed terrain table.

Most of these Requirement play a major part in selecting construction materials. Efficient Storage is quite covered by the selected tile size and depth. Seamless and Connectivity we will cover further below. All the others are crucial, especially the difficult combination of Lightweight/Durability/Economy! Also, regarding Appearance: I wanted the Pedion tiles to be made from something to allow me to work with and create depressions on the terrain. That meant that a simple, hard basing material was not enough, but a more malleable material (like foam) was needed.

My first effort, as shown in the pictures, was the use of Foam Board, also known as Foam Core, the material most Architects use for modeling (told you I'm an engineer, didn't I?). For those of you who have not heard of it, it's a combination of solid foam sandwiched between two layers of strong cardboard (we call it "maquette paper" in Greece). I used 1 cm thick foamboard (about 0.4 of an inch) and cut it into my 30x30cm (~1x1ft) squares. Foamboard has a variety of great advantages: it is strong, yet extremely lightweight. It can be cut by normal craft tools, like a hobby knife, although it requires a proper method to do so (watch Mel's great video tutorial). And it combines the rigid cardboard with the foam in its core, so I could just "dig" into the stuff and create anything I wanted (up to 1 cm deep), and still have a base underneath. It also allowed me to keep a small (2-3 mm) cardboard "edge" on each tile, so they could overlap and cover the seams a bit. Finally, while not as cheap as pure foam sheets, it is not to expensive either (even at the 1 cm thickness) so I could keep the project cost low.

That's aprox. 1' x 1' x 0.4" for those of you challenged by metric figures :) 

You can see the small edge left when cutting, to allow overlap between tiles

So, why I keep using the past tense? What went wrong with foamboard? Well... it wraps, as many people using it will tell you! To be more precise: it does not always wrap, and you can minimize/avoid warping with proper preparation. You see, what happens is this: when you apply to much liquid on one side, say watered-down PVA glue (as it is bound to happen in terrain making), the water shrinks the cardboard on this side. The shrinked cardboard then pulls the foam core and the other side, and the sides and corners of the tile are raised. How to avoid this effect? you can put duct tape on the under-side, even "paint" it with watered-down PVA as well, to refute the warping effect when the upper-side will start shrinking. However, this is something you can try for a homemade terrain, not as standing method in consistent-quality mass production. Oh, and there were also Durability issues: much use would start to fray the edges of the cardboard. All in all, I had to abandon foamboard for my tiles, although I will be using it for smaller terrain pieces - and I still find it a good solution for something a home user could make.

I moved on to my final (so far) solution: the combination of solid foam sheets with a basing material underneath.

I wanted the foam part, since it will allow me to sculpt it into depressions, rivers etc. So I will be using polystyrene foam sheets, 1 cm thick, cut into 30x30 cm pieces. I tried both kinds of polystyrene foam available in the mass market, the expanded foam (called felizol in Greece) and the extruded foam (XPS, also known as DOW or styrofoam). Both have pros and cons, with the extruded sheets obviously more durable and rigid, but more expensive. Cutting them in shape is a wife's nightmare, but for mass production I would have to use a professional solution, involving heated blades or wire cutters. I will probably use both in Pedion, with expanded foam the most likely candidate due to cost (and it will be protected from its basing material anyway). Both solutions are extremely lightweight and quite economical.

My XPS (extruded polystyrene) foam tiles

As mentioned above, the foam tiles will be attached on some sort of base. Why the base?
First, from experts on the field, I have heard than even XPS, can wrap a little, or fray, however rigid and durable it may seem. A 2 mm rise on the corners could well spell disaster for my modular tiles - so better safe than sorry. Secondly, as I mentioned, I want to dig into the 1 cm thick foam, and still have a solid surface underneath, to act as, eg, the river bed. Thirdly, the base can be shaped to help with connectivity options.

Many materials could be used for a hard base under the foam sheet. Of those, I did not choose the most obvious and popular solution: wood, in the form of MDF. MDF sheets are a) too heavy b) too pricey, and c) still difficult too cut, compared with my other solutions. Do not get me wrong - MDF would have been my choice if I made Pedion just for myself . But in terms of mass production other materials are available: die-cut metal and plastic PVC sheets.

So far my tiles are produced with a basing of a thin sheet of aluminum (I tried steel - durable but heavy, you have no idea how heavy...). I chose aluminum 'cause it is a) Durable, b) Rigid, c) Light, d) Thin - I have used 1 mm (0.04") thick sheets, but will probably go for even thinner, at 0.5 mm (0.02"), d) Cheap, at these lightweight thicknesses. Obviously you do not cut it at home, but I have secured access to industrial die-cutters.

Expanded polystyrene Pedion tiles, with an aluminum base

Right now I'm experimenting on plastic (PVC foam) sheets - they seem equally lightweight and durable, not to mention low-cost.  Both solutions seem valid, and my final selection will come after some extensive cost-analysis.

Here is the form of the tiles so far - XPS foam sheet mounted on thin aluminum basing:

Notice those small, round thingies on the tile corners? these are small magnets, and if you like, I'll tell you below why I mounted them there...

Connectivity issues

Still reading? great - let me talk a bit about another requirement I have had. This is something that many manufacturers of modular terrain do not necessary tackle: keeping the tiles connected to each other. It is an issue for me and my Pedion tiles; you see, in many modular solutions the tiles are just too heavy to easily move around, or the manufacturer simply does not think this is an issue. However, Pedion tiles are lightweight to better carry them. And I wanted my tiles to keep together, even if somebody accidentally pushes one of them. On the same time I did not want a connectivity solution that would sacrifice Modularity and the ability to easily interchange and rotate terrain pieces on the table.

The first solution I came up with was to drill small wholes on specific distances from each tile corner. Each hole would be by the middle (thick wise) of the foam sheet, and there would be 8 holes total. Then each tile would slide to connect to the surrounding ones be using small, round pins - in my prototype I used common round toothpicks and they worked remarkably well. They maintain a strong grip among the tiles - so strong in fact, that you could lift 6 (2x3) interconnected tiles and they would keep together. One did not even have to join all the tiles, as you could just connect the framing tiles of your gaming area and they would keep the rest in place.

See the toothpick pins between the tiles?

It was (and is) a good, solid solution, and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about connecting foam tiles he/she has at home (post a comment below or join me in google+ if you need to know the details). However, the toothpick pins pose some minor disadvantages. It is not an easy solution to implement in mass production quantities of tiles. Also, it requires some extra effort when placing the tiles, in order to slide them carefully together, in a particular order, so that the pins enter correctly (not to mention some pricked fingertips). Then, the foam hole starts to get wider after a while, as the pins enter and exit repeatedly, enlarging it in the process. And finally, I had a small gameplay issue: when the tiles are fixed together, it is not easy to un-pin them and reconnect them, something that some games (like the Field of Glory Napoleonic ruleset) require for their terrain pieces (eg in FoG one player places and the other can rotate or move). All minor points, but I wanted something better for Pedion.

So I designed my current solution: magnet connectivity. Instead of small holes, strong magnets are mounted on each tile corner, eight magnets total. Their polarity is aligned so that they can easily snap together.  This solution works like a charm: the tiles snap and unsnap to each other without effort, and the tiles are truly interchangeable but still keep solidly connected.

In case you want to see how they connect for yourself, here is a short video:

By the way, this is not exactly an economical solution - magnets are cheap, but this is a LOT of magnets. If thing go well for Pedion, and we enter actual mass production, I have even better connectivity solutions in mind. But these require die-cutting of the base in a specific and complex way, that requires expensive matrices. Therefore, I will stick with my magnets for now.

If I managed to interest you so far, thank you. Trust me; the boring posts are over, and the next ones will more about the terrain itself. I NEED your comments and ideas, to improve Pedion even more, so do not be shy. And stay tuned!

Good gaming all